This presentation from OR2012 provides an overview of activities in JISC-funded Innovation Zone, which supports development of repository infrastructure by facilitating: technical knowledge-exchange (expert workshops); sharing of key information on repository components and use cases (knowledge base); trials of APIs with developer communities, technical feedback on data flows: what works, what doesn’t, what’s to be done and when (DevCSI); incubation of prospective services.

1. Innovation Zone:
Support for Developments in
Repository Infrastructure
Thom Bunting
Innovation Zone Project Manager
ISC at UKOLN
Open Repositories 2012 (OR2012)
University of Edinburgh
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN
is supported by:
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

2. Innovation Zone: what it is
JISC-funded Innovation Zone supports development of
repository infrastructure by facilitating:
 technical knowledge-exchange (expert workshops)
 sharing of key information on repository components
and use cases (knowledge base)
 trials of APIs with developer communities, technical
feedback on data flows: what works, what doesn’t,
what’s to be done and when (DevCSI)
 incubation of prospective services (not yet established)
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

3. Knowledge exchange:
aggregation & visualisation
Innovation Zone experts workshop on ‘functional
category’ for APIs, aggregation & visualisation tools
related to repository metadata (September 2012)
 RepNet+ Oversight Group recommends work with
three search components into Innovation Zone (Intute
Repository Search (IRS), CORE, RepUK)
 Knowledge exchange around: harvesting from
institutional repositories, managing large
aggregations, offering functions through APIs,
metadata processing / normalisation, options for
faceted search
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

4. Knowledge exchange:
curation & preservation
Innovation Zone is arranging experts workshop on
curation & preservation strategies for research
repositories (October 2012)
 JISC recommends that experts get together identify
curation & preservation services / components
required to support RepNet+ infrastructure
 Knowledge exchange around: what exists already,
dependencies and gaps, groups to be involved
(DCC, Digital Preservation Coalition, etc)
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

5. Information sharing:
components & use cases
Innovation Zone maintains a knowledge base of key
repository infrastructure components and use cases
 developers provided
with common
reference points
)
(iplus.ukoln.ac.uk/component-catalogue
 use cases collected
from workgroups in
semi-structured way
 linkages of use cases
to components
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

6. Technical feedback on
repository infrastructure
Innovation Zone arranges trials of APIs with developer
communities, technical feedback on data flows: what
works, what doesn’t, what’s to be done and when
 DevCSI ‘HackDays’ and other events / outreach
activities with developer communities support highly
cost-efficient and productive trialing of APIs
 Proven model, recognised as invaluable by
commercial content providers (Elsevier, Microsoft Research,
Talis etc)
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

7. Example: Gateway to
Research (GtR) HackDay
Innovation Zone supports early and on-going feedback
from developer communities regarding key
components of repository infrastructure
 Gateway to Research working with us and DevCSI to
run activities where developers can test and hack
prototypes against GtR APIs
 GtR likely to become a consumer of data from
institutional repositories or provider of data (funder-
related, project codes, subject classifications?)
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

8. How can you engage?
Innovation Zone would like to hear from you if you have
a service of relevance to repositories with an API that
you would like to trial with developers
 Let us know so we can help you reach other services
and developers
 Get in touch also if you have interests in repository
infrastructure innovations such as micro-services and
the incubation of prospective components (future
areas of work in the Innovation Zone)
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk

9. Contact details
Dr. Thom Bunting
t.bunting@ukoln.ac.uk
Innovation Zone Project Manager
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/work/innovation-zone/
JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk